The World's Writing Systems: Latin

TABLE 23.1: Etruscan and Latin-Faliscan Alphabets (after Momndi 1982: 29)

Etruscan

Faliscan

Latin

Marsiliana

Archaic & Recent

a

fl

A

Afi

A

a

b

^

b

c/g

1

y

c

C

c/g

d

<i

D

d

e

^

^

&

e

V

*i

^

V

z[ts]

i

i

u

z[ts]

h

S

BO

□ B

B

h

th

O0

th

i

1

1

)

1

i

k

>l

>l

K

t

k

1

>l

>l

I

I

1

m

^

^WA

r-\M

t^

m

n

1

^1H

f H

/^

n

§

B

§

P

1

1

n

r

P

s
q
r

M

9

MM

9

<10

9

?
p

q

r

s
t

T

^
r

s
t

u

Y

YV

V

YV

u

S, X

X

X

X

X

S, X

ph

ch
f

9

9

t

fi

ph

ch
f

Latin

An Etruscan influence on the Latin alphabet (table 23 . i ) can be seen in the third let-
ter, Greek gamma, which took the voiceless sound C before a (as in Latin Caesar [ka-
jsar]). Unlike the Etruscans, the Romans had the sound [g]; and since the Greek
gamma, T or C, was already being used to represent [k], which the Romans also need-
ed, Spurius Carvilius Rufa invented, in the early third century b.c.e., a new letter, G,
simply by adding a stroke to the existing C. This new sign was inserted in the alphabet
following the letter F, in the slot formerly occupied by the Greek letter Z, which was
at this time not used in Latin. When, in die first century b.c.e., the Romans needed
the Z to write Greek words, they reintroduced it; but it went to the end of the line, as
the last letter of the alphabet, so as to preserve the original order of the alphabet. The
Romans did not need the Greek letters [t""] or H [ks], or those which had been added
at the end of the Greek alphabet, <^ [p'], X [k'], ^ [ps], and Q, [01]; so these letters
dropped out.

Greek Y [u/y], in the form V (as in Etruscan), was used for both [u/y] and [v],
while I stood for [i] and the consonant [j]. When Y was reintroduced as a separate let-
ter in the first century b.c.e., to be used in words of Greek origin, it too was put at the
end of the alphabet, immediately before Z. The last sign to be added in antiquity, the
cross, had the value [ks] in the western Greek scripts, whence Latin X, rather than the
value [kT (Greek [x]) as in the eastern Greek script (from which came classical and

i02 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

modem Greek X M). Latin X thus had the sound of Greek E [ks]. The Roman al-
phabet was therefore as follows: A, B, C (= [k]), D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q,
R (instead of Greek P), S, T, V, X, Y, Z. The Greek and Latin scripts differed in other
ways, too — ^Latin D, in contrast to Greek A; C (and G) as against T; L versus A; S
versus S — no doubt because the Latin forms were western variants, which had come
into Etruscan and Latin from the Euboean colonies.

Not until the Renaissance was U distinguished from V and consonantal J from I
(and not until Noah Webster's 1806 Compendious Dictionary of the English Lan-
guage were they separated in alphabetical Hsts). The sound [f], which did not exist in
Greek — O ph [p"] was not pronounced [f] until Roman times — was perhaps intro-
duced to Europe by the Etruscans. This sound was at first written in Latin, as in early
Etruscan, with FH wh. The classic example for this usage had long been the seventh-
century B.c.E. fibula from Praeneste, near Rome, a gold pin of Etruscan style en-
graved with what was considered the earliest Latin inscription: Manios : med : fhe :
fhaked : Numasioi 'Manios made me for Numasios (Numerius)'. That this inscription
is a forgery (on a genuinely antique artifact) has recently been demonstrated (Gordon
1983: 76), though the inscription's characters and language agree with what we
would expect in this early period. By the fourth century b.c.e. the F was used alone
for [f], as in the inscription on the Hd of the Ficoroni cista, an engraved bronze toilet
box from Praeneste (figure 37). The earliest Latin inscriptions were retrograde or
boustrophedon (Castor and Pollux dedication, Duenos vase, Forum cippus). Associ-
ated with Praenestine (and other) Latin is syllabic notation, where a consonant letter
represents the consonant plus a vowel, often the letter's name (Vine 1993" 323-44)-

Sample OF Latin

^m j j jj &mJii^mBmsvv^

'0 ^X\(i^(i'*^^^i\ i » \j \ ^ ^0)\/W '^\/Yq/^ I Ct>

FIGURE 37. Ficoroni cista: Latin inscription on lid. Fourth century B.C.E.
(Manino 1981: 131, fig. 36).

J. Latin: Novios Plautios med Romai fecid/

2. Gloss: Novios Plautios me Rome.LOC made

1. Dindia Macolnia fileai dedit

2. Dindia Macolnia daughter.DAT gave

'Novios Plautios made me in Rome — ^Dindia Macolnia gave [me] to her daugh-
ter.' —Mansuelli ig§o-§i.

310 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Bibliography

General

Amadasi Guzzo, Maria Giulia. 1987. Scritture alfabetiche. Rome: Valerio Levi Editore.

Manino, Luciano. 1981. Antologia di testi epigrafici etruschi e italici. Turin: Giappichelli Editore.

Morandi, Alessandro. 1982. Epigrafia Italica. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider.

Prosdocimi, Aldo L., ed. 1978A. Popoli e civiltadelV Italia antica, vol. 6: Lingue e dialetti delVItalia

antica. Rome: Biblioteca di Storia Patria.
Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the Alphabet. 1990. Introduction by J. T.

Hooker. London: British Museum; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Early Latin

Gordon, Arthur E. 1983. Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. Berkeley and Los Angeles:

University of California Press.
MansuelH, Guido. 1950-51. "L'incisore Novios Plautios." Studi Etruschi 21: 401-6.
Vine, Brent. 1993. Studies in Archaic Latin Inscriptions (Innsbrucker Beitrage zur Sprachv^issen-

schaft 75). Innsbruck: Universitat Innsbruck, Institut fiir Sprachwissenschaft.

THE WORLD'S "'«"-

WRITING SYSTEMS ''«-L°'""'^

William Bright